ALMOST INVINCIBLE
by ResX
Summary: She's cruel. Cold. Emotionally numb. Yet when he convinces her to give her milk to the kits he loves, both will find that sometimes, being almost invincible shows how broken you truly are. And sometimes, that's for the best to remember you're broken than to forget you're not indestructible. [ONESHOT] [For Jay, Snow, Shadow, Wolf and Daggs]


**ALMOST INVINCIBLE**

**A Holy Island Oneshot**

* * *

"Dada?"

The bracken-striped ashen gray tom looked up to the kit warmly. "Yes?"

"Why does mama not like us?"

Alarm blared through the tom's body. "What...what makes you ask that, hon?"

"She never talks to us!" interrupted the she-kit's brother, butting in between daughter and father. "She always sleeps on the other side of the nest and she never smiles! She's like a...a…"

"Frumpy-monster?" added the other she-kit.

"Yeah! A frumpy-monster!"

The first she-kit looked up quietly and sadly to her father. "Dada, is something wrong with mama?"

The tom had always feared this question.

_Is something wrong with her?_

No, feared wasn't the right word. In fact, he had been expecting the day where the kits would start to notice their mother's behavior. As he stared out through the intense flurries and the frozen, snow-coated landscape and his eyes fell upon the charcoal she-cat, a stark contrast to the canvas white outside, his eyes clouded over slowly.

He feared to say that he didn't know.

And so he decided that wasn't what he was gonna say.

He smiled sweetly. "I'll go ask for you."

After telling the kits to not destroy the nest, he walked out into the snow, going to meet the she-cat staring emotionlessly into the blizzard.

"Garrison."

"Hello, Sky."

The two fell back into silence, remaining a comfortable distance away from each other.

Finally, Sky irritably broke the silence.

"You wanted to talk to me."

Her icy tone sent a pang in her heart.

"Let's take a walk."

He didn't realize how assertive he sounded until Sky actually agreed without argument.

And off they went, squinting their eyes and braving the freezing cold as they walked through the snow. After a while, fifteen minutes or so, Garrison slowed, taking a seat near a ledge, where a Thunderpath lay strewn into pathways to various Twoleg dens in front of them.

It was a marvelous scene, the homes of Twolegs being ravaged by a silent storm. A sign that even they were not above the power of nature herself.

He sighed.

"Garrison, if this is about the kits, I'm gonna rip your throat out and feed it to the wolves."

The tom didn't even flinch. Such grandiose insults and threats were commonplace when it came to daily life with Sky.

"Keep your claws sheathed for a moment."

Sky groaned. "You gotta be fucking kidding me."

Now Garrison was starting to get aggravated. Few things pissed him off, but this exasperation about the one thing in life he truly cares about struck certain nerves he strongly felt should be left alone. "Can you shut your trap and listen to me for a moment?"

"Why?" pressed Sky harshly, "So you can talk shit about how I feel about the kits? For the thirtieth time? I've made it clear how I feel about them, Garrison, so can you just move on?"

"No!" snapped Garrison, "You agreed to help raise them! To give them your milk! To allow them to acknowledge you as their _mother!_"

His eyes were burning now.

"So you think you're just going to walk away from them the first chance you get?"

"Yes!" said Sky, "Because they're not mine! I don't see why you care about them because they're not yours either!"

That was a low blow.

Garrison raised his hackles, "I told-"

"Don't lie to me," she retorted in the most apathetic and irritated tone she could possibly say, "I knew whose kits they were the moment I saw them. I know you stole them."

Ice churned through Garrison's veins.

_Impossible!_

"You're...you're bluffing…"

"Look who has the high ground now," said Sky with an aggressive, challenging smirk, "So are you thinking twice about not letting me go?"

"No," he said, now wavering and unconfident in himself, "Why would I? Who is there to tell?"

"I wonder…" she said, looking him dead in the eyes, "I wonder how the kits would feel if they were told we weren't the parents? That they weren't just abandoned and found at birth? That they were _stolen_? Stolen by a desperate and selfish tom who just wanted to appease his denial?"

Garrison said nothing, moved nothing.

"Denial that you are the cruel cat you truly are?"

Garrison slashed her across the muzzle harshly and looked away.

He felt injured. It took him a moment to realize he was fighting tears.

Goddamnit, why did the truth have to hurt so much?

He felt about ready to compose himself and launch into a tirade about her cruelty, how much of a terrible cat she was that would do nothing except fuel her confidence. Hell, she was even smiling as she held her bleeding nose to dull the momentary pain.

How could he possibly think that she would be a good mother?

She fed on fear.

She _killed_ for a living.

She was emotionally invincible.

And then a click.

A memory.

An epiphany.

He had a weapon.

He actually knew her.

Maybe the tens that she killed couldn't breach, even dent the parts of her emotional complex that she had spent her life shielding.

There was a part of her that she hadn't bothered to protect.

So when he straightened up, he could feel her expectation to fire away at her emotionlessness.

"Who do you kill for?"

The very trace of fear-scent crossed his senses.

"I kill for the Four. So do you. At least, you used to."

Garrison felt the desperation behind the jab. She was getting defensive almost prematurely.

"What about your mother?"

When he was met with silence, he dared to turn around and look her in the eyes.

"What about Coal-"

He barely finished when Sky jumped him, immediately going to choke him. Her eyes wrought an unholy and otherworldly rage that made him have serious second thoughts about his plan.

"Don't. Speak. That. Name. Again."

"Why?"

He kicked out with all his weight, breaking him out of the chokehold, and pinned her down.

"Is the master assassin ashamed that she killed her own brother?"

It took four swipes to put him in the "death grip," the position of certain death that Sky had trained herself into. One hind-leg on his belly, the other between his legs and both forepaws wrapped around his throat, ready to rip his body to pieces in every painful way possible.

"I know...it...wasn't...your fault…"

Sky's grip didn't relinquish. Her mouth foamed as if she had been infected with some foreign disease.

"Coal...knows...it...isn't...too…"

Garrison was swiftly losing consciousness, knowing that he had been toying with fire for much too long.

"I know!" she snarled.

"No…" he snarled back, "No...you...don't."

He fully expected Sky to kill him now.

But in an uncharacteristic act of mercy, she flung him aside, refusing to finish the kill, and stormed ten steps away.

Garrison, after a long coughing spell where he slowly regained his breath, stumbled over to her. Her pain was now so apparent that he could feel it embracing the air around them. Even he could feel the raw, untouched part of her heart that she never thought would be brought to life again.

At that moment, Garrison felt sympathy for one of the most dangerous cats in the world.

The tom cautiously approached. He had to make her understand.

He reached out. "Sky…"

"DON'T TOUCH ME!" she roared, smacking his arm away harshly. Garrison recoiled momentarily, hissing from the pain.

When he looked up, she was turned away again, and the tom was very tempted to walk away. But he would not give up. He wouldn't walk away from a cat in this kind of distress again.

He had made that mistake already and knew that one time was already too many.

He reached out again.

Sky hit back, but not after freezing. And it was less of a hit and more of an aggressive shouldering off.

"Don't touch me," she whispered unconvincingly.

"No."

Sky tensed, not expecting the sudden denial, but did not escalate any further.

Garrison sighed. "Guess you're not as strong and menacing when you're hit in the right places."

The two sat together, Garrison sitting silently in the blizzard while Sky struggled to fight back tears.

"I want to help you, Sky," he said, shifting closer to her, "You don't need to live this life of hate and cruelty. You have no obligation to anyone. You have every opportunity to erase the Four from your life."

Sky was repeatedly mouthing '_I know_' over and over again.

"So...why don't you?" he asked, turning to her, "Why do you spend your life ending tens, ruining hundreds when you have the opportunity to save yours. Why do you not care?"

"Why do _you_ care?" she fired back, gritting her teeth, "You've killed, too. Just like I have. It's not like you're the golden tom the world loves either."

It was a good point and Garrison took a moment to consider it. Eventually, he looked back in the direction of the cave, where he smiled.

"I've moved on," he said sweetly, "I know what's truly important now. To me, and to everything my life means to me."

He turned back to see Sky, fighting back tears that were clouding the silent admiration in her eyes. Garrison felt his heart swell and moved one of his paws to her face. She flinched away the moment he made contact, and Garrison thought it better to leave her alone for the moment

"Do it again," she whispered suddenly.

Garrison raised an eyebrow. "You want me to…"

"Yeah."

"You sure? You...moved away last ti-"

"I'm ready now. Trust me."

The tom nodded after a moment, reaching out to touch her face again. She tensed up as his paw moved slowly to her face and hissed when she felt the pad on her whiskers.

But she didn't move away, allowing Garrison to touch her face.

Her fur was strangely soft, like feathers blowing in the wind, as he meticulously guided his paw all around, drying her tears and flattening out the clumps and irregularities along her fur.

Sky enjoyed it. Even smiled for a bit. For the first minute at least.

"Are you done?"

"What?" he said innocently, pulling away, "You said-"

"Yeah, okay, okay," she said, cutting him off, "It's just...we've been out here a while. I think the kits will be wondering where we are."

"You're right," he said, his eyes glancing back in the direction of the cave, "Let's go."

And as they walked, Garrison realized something very different in her choice of grammar.

_We?_

"So since you are an expert on the strength of the mental persona," said Sky, smirking, "What 'gave away' that I was 'almost invincible.'"

Garrison shifted a bit closer when he thought of an answer.

"You still have a beautiful smile."

* * *

**If you are saying to yourself something like "The context makes zero sense," that's understandable.**

**The story behind these two is a bit loaded. Basically, there is this oligarch super-cell called the Four, sort of like BloodClan, but with four Scourges, and they have this group of assassins that they command every day. On one mission, Garrison went rogue and went off on his own after a romantic relationship fell through. He ended up stalking the same she-cat as she left the Four and escaped to the Holy Island. Sometime in between, Sky was sent to the Holy Island on an execution mission and was stationed there. When a battle went south, Garrison found Sky and convinced her to escape, taking his pat mate's newborn kits as a last act of revenge.**

**tl;dr: these cats are not that great.**

**Now, I know that this is now entirely accurate, those of you who actually know their backstory (*cough* *cough* Jay *cough* *cough*) and if you feel like it, you can correct me. This is just the oversimplified and slightly incorrect version everyone else will understand. Cause let's be real. The Holy Island lost grip with reality long ago.**

**But Jay, and any other Holy Island Forum members who happen to be reading this, consider this my belated Christmas present to all of y'all. I thought it would be fun to end the year with a bang and give you a token of my appreciation of your friendship and camaraderie.**

**So here you go. Hope it's worth it.**

**Happy Holidays.**

**Best,**

**~Res**


End file.
